BEIJING: Replacing regular salt with an alternative may help lower high blood pressure in the elderly, a new study has found.
According to research published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, older adults who use salt substitutes are 40 percent less likely to develop high blood pressure than those who consume regular salt.
Dr. Ying Fengwu, executive director of Beijing-based Peking University Clinical Research Institute and lead author of the study, said older people tend to consume more salt because of cheap and readily available processed foods. Elucidating the impact of increased awareness of food choices and low-sodium diets on heart health is critical.
According to the World Health Organization, high blood pressure is the leading cause of cardiovascular disease and death from cardiovascular problems. This disease affects more than 1.4 billion people every year and causes 1.8 million deaths every year.
In this study, researchers looked at how reducing sodium consumption could help seniors’ blood pressure in care facilities in China.
More than 600 people aged 55 and over living in 48 care facilities participated in the study. All of them had a blood pressure of 90/104 and none were taking medication for it.
Half of the care facilities replaced normal salt with alternatives, while the other half continued to use normal salt.
After two years, the rate of high blood pressure cases was higher in facilities using common salt (24.3 cases per 100 per year) than those using alternatives (11.7 cases per 100).
